This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice, and I am not a licensed financial advisor. Anything I share here reflects my own reading of the market and what I plan to do on my own account.

The first thing that caught my eye when I pulled up MT5 this morning was how clean the recovery from Wednesday’s flush has become. Gold isn’t drifting into resistance today — it’s pressing into it, candle after candle, right on the line I’ve been watching since the Fed decision.

Opening

Spot XAU/USD is trading around $4,372–$4,377, up roughly 0.4–0.7% on the session, after printing an overnight low near $4,334 and pushing into a fresh short-term high above $4,373. That level is not arbitrary — it’s the same resistance my M30, H1 and H4 charts converge on, and it now sits almost exactly where price is trading as I write this.

This is a recovery story. Two sessions ago, gold was sitting near five-week lows around $4,235–$4,245 in the immediate aftermath of the Fed’s rate decision. Since then, it has clawed back almost all of that ground in a sharp V-shape, and today’s session is the first real test of whether that bounce has legs.

Fundamental Landscape

Wednesday’s FOMC decision is still the dominant story shaping this week. The Fed raised its target range by 25 basis points to 3.75–4.00%, the first hike in over three years under Chair Kevin Warsh, and the move was unanimous. The dot plot came out hawkish, with most participants pencilling in at least one more hike before year-end. My initial read was that this should keep pressuring gold — and for about 24 hours, it did, driving the metal down to that $4,235–$4,245 low.

What’s changed since is the supporting cast. Oil has eased off its highs, taking some heat out of the inflation narrative that had been reinforcing the hawkish Fed case. Treasury yields have retreated from their post-Fed spike. And overnight, the Bank of Japan hiked its own policy rate as expected, which weakened the yen but came alongside a broadly risk-on tone across Asian equities and, notably, a rebound in Asian gold stocks off their own six-week lows. None of this reverses the hawkish Fed backdrop, but it has taken enough pressure off real yields and the dollar to let gold breathe.

I’d also flag one non-driver worth mentioning only because it’s in the headlines: reports that Venezuela is close to a deal to transfer roughly $4 billion in central bank gold reserves to the US. Interesting story, but I don’t see it as a price driver for XAU/USD today — more a reserves/politics story than a flow event that moves spot.

Asia & Europe Sessions

Asia extended the recovery theme, with gold stocks bouncing and broader risk sentiment firming despite the BOJ hike. That’s not the combination you’d expect on paper — a rate hike usually strengthens a currency and can pressure risk assets — but the yen actually slid, and stocks rose anyway, which tells me the market had already priced this move in and is now trading the “ease after two hikes” relief instead.

European trade has been quieter so far, largely consolidating the gains built in Asia rather than adding fresh direction. With today’s calendar fairly light until the US afternoon, I’d expect London hours to keep chopping around the $4,360–$4,375 band while the market waits to see if New York can force a decision at the resistance line.

Technical Analysis

Zooming out first: the monthly and weekly structure is still constructive. This remains a corrective pullback within a longer uptrend that peaked above $5,500 earlier in the year, not a structural breakdown. The weekly chart shows price stabilising right around the current $4,370s zone, which lines up with a visible transition area on both the monthly and weekly timeframes.

The daily paints a rougher picture — a clear, dominant downtrend that has run from roughly $5,000 down toward the $4,000 area over recent months. That’s the structure keeping the broader technical signal “Neutral” rather than outright bullish, and it’s the reason I’m not getting carried away by the shorter-term strength.

Where it gets interesting is H4 down to M30. The H4 shows a clean base forming from the $4,245 low, with a strong bounce running straight into the same $4,373 resistance shelf. On M30 and H1, price has been grinding higher in a compression pattern since that low — higher lows, tightening range, repeatedly testing the line rather than backing away from it. That’s usually a sign that buyers are actively absorbing supply just under resistance, not a sign of exhaustion.

The oscillators back that up, with a caveat. Investing.com’s technical summary reads Strong Buy on the 30-minute, hourly and 5-hour timeframes, and price is sitting above every major moving average from the 5-period right through the 200-period. But RSI(14) on the 30-minute is already around 62, and both the Stochastic RSI and Williams %R are flashing overbought. To me, that doesn’t kill the bullish case — it just means the first push through $4,373, if it comes, could be choppier than a clean breakout.

Key Levels

  • Resistance 3 – $4,400–$4,405: Psychological round number and my first real target if the breakout runs.
  • Resistance 2 – $4,388: Yesterday’s doji high and the last clear supply pocket before the $4,400 zone.
  • Resistance 1 – $4,373–$4,374: Today’s decision line. Converges across my MT5 horizontal, the daily pivot cluster, and the recent high.
  • Support 1 – $4,362–$4,366: Pivot support cluster; the first level I’d expect to hold on any shallow pullback.
  • Support 2 – $4,330–$4,300: The base of the current consolidation range and my line in the sand for the bullish case staying intact.
  • Support 3 – $4,245: The FOMC-day flush low. A clean break back below this would tell me the correction is resuming in earnest.

My Gold Outlook Today

My main scenario is a breakout attempt. A clean, sustained close on the M30 or H1 above $4,373–$4,374 opens the door to a fast move toward the liquidity left behind on the way down through H4 — realistically, that means a push toward $4,388 first and then $4,400+ if momentum carries through the US session.

My alternative scenario is a liquidity grab and rejection. Given that the daily trend is still technically bearish, I wouldn’t be surprised to see price poke just above $4,373 to sweep stops, then reverse hard on a strong rejection candle. If that happens, I’d expect a retreat back into the $4,330–$4,300 consolidation base as the first target.

My invalidation point for the bullish read is a daily close back below roughly $4,300. That would suggest today’s strength was a bounce inside a larger downtrend rather than the start of something new, and I’d shift my bias back toward the $4,245 low being retested.

What I’m Watching Today

  • Price action directly on the $4,373 line: the M30 candles here matter more than any single headline today.
  • FOMC’s Bowman speaking (15:30 GMT): any hint on the pace of further hikes could move yields and the dollar quickly.
  • US Industrial Production and Leading Index (15:15/16:00 GMT): secondary, but worth a glance for confirmation of the “growth holding up” narrative.
  • CFTC positioning data (21:30 GMT): I want to see whether speculative gold longs added or trimmed exposure into this week’s volatility.